


candles burning low

by perfectlyrose



Series: Everyday Magic [7]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Magic, Magic-Users, Romance, Universe Alteration, magic!rose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 21:35:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15542643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlyrose/pseuds/perfectlyrose
Summary: The Doctor, Rose, and Jack are arrested and separated while exploring an alien city. When Rose hasn't broken herself out using her magic by the time the Doctor and Jack escape, the Doctor starts to envision the worst.





	candles burning low

**Author's Note:**

> Set sometime after Counterspell

“Rose! Rose, can you hear me?” The Doctor was well on his way to frantic. 

It had been thirty-six hours since they’d been arrested and separated and this was the third city jail he had checked. With every cell that didn’t contain his companion, with every minute that passed without her popping up next to him with a smirk and the wiggle of her fingers that told him she’d freed herself with magic, his panic increased. The fact that she hadn’t broken herself out already made him start contemplating worst case scenarios.

“Rose?” he called again as he strode down the corridor, glancing in each cell as he went. This was the last detention center on his list. Hopefully Jack was having better luck with the places he was searching.

“Doctor?”

He froze at the quiet answer. “Rose? Where are you?”

“Down here, at the end,” she called back, a little louder this time.

The Doctor ran, skidding to a stop in front of the last cell. Rose was sitting on the floor, knees pulled to her chest and leaning against the wall.

“Took you long enough,” she teased, offering him a weak smile. “The accommodations here are less than spectacular.”

“We’ll leave a terrible review,” he promised, hoping to keep that smile on her face as he set to work on the lock.

The sonic made short work of the mechanism. As soon as it popped open, the Doctor rushed into the cell and knelt in front of Rose.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, cupping her cheek. He couldn’t see any obvious injuries but something had to be wrong.

“Got knocked over the head before being tossed in here. Still feeling a bit woozy,” she admitted. “S’why I couldn’t…” she waggled her fingers at him in their shorthand for her magic.

“Trouble concentrating?” He carefully felt around her head, looking for the bump she was sure to have.

“Yeah. Stop that!” she hissed, jerking away as his probing fingers brushed the sensitive spot. “Hurts enough without you poking at it.”

“Sorry.”

“You’re not, but I’ll let it slide as long as you get me out of here” Rose said. “I need tea and blankets and clean clothes.”

“Medbay first, then we’ll make all those things happen.”

“I would argue but my head hurts too much.”

“Can’t even threaten to curse me,” he teased. “Finally on a level playing field.”

“Oi, I could still threaten. Would just have to wait on the follow through until this head thing is sorted.”

The Doctor helped her to her feet, keeping an arm around her waist as she swayed. He wasn’t sure he would have been able to let go of her even if she had been steady on her feet, not with the fear of losing her still pulsing through him. “Can you make it back to the TARDIS?”

“How far is it?”

He did a quick calculation in his head. “Two miles or so. Maybe a little less.”

“I’m not sure I can make it that far like this.”

He nodded and carefully picked her up bridal-style. “This probably won’t help the dizziness but we’ll get back to the TARDIS faster.”

“Didn’t tell you I was dizzy,” she protested, pressing her face against his chest.

“You’ve got a serious head injury, Rose, and are having trouble walking and standing. It follows that you’re probably dizzy.”

“Know-it-all.”

“Good trait for a doctor,” he shot back as he carried her out of the cell and started down the corridor.

“Did Jack get out?”

“Yeah, he was on the opposite side of the same jail I was put in, so I broke him out pretty quickly” He made it a few more steps before swearing quietly.

“What?”

“Can you reach into the inside pocket of my jacket. Your mobile’s in there. Need to let Jack know that I found you. He’s searching some of the other prisons.”

He stood still while Rose maneuvered her hand into the pocket in question and fished out her mobile. As soon as she had it, he set off towards the building exit again.

Rose dialed Jack and was unsurprised when he answered on the second ring. She put him on speaker.

“Hope you’ve got better news than me, Doc. I haven’t seen her yet,” Jack said as soon as he answered.

“I’d be worried if you had. Don’t like the idea of having a doppelganger on this planet, if I’m being honest,” Rose said.

The Doctor snorted. 

“Rosie! Are you okay? Are you with the Doctor?”

“I’ve got her, Harkness.” the Doctor cut in. “Meet us back at the TARDIS.”

“And I’m fine,” Rose put in. “Well, I will be once I’ve had a quick visit to the medbay.”

“What happened?” Jack demanded, worry obvious in his voice.

“Bump on the head,” the Doctor said. “Nothing we can’t fix up.”

“Good. We were worried about you, Rose. Glad you’re alright.”

“Thanks Jack. I’ll see you in a bit,” she promised.

She rung off and settled back against the Doctor’s chest, phone clutched in her hands.

“You doing okay?” he asked after a minute or two of silence.

“Yeah.”

“So, is a head injury the only thing that prevents your magic from working?” he asked, wanting to keep her talking and awake.

“Nope. Anything that can prevent concentration. I’m a very sloppy magic user when drunk, I really don’t recommend that. Head injuries like this, obviously. Other major injuries or illnesses that sap your strength. Also just running out of energy. I can overextend myself with too many spells or a really big spell and then I just don’t have the energy to do anything until I’ve slept and eaten,” she explained.

“Like when you had to do the counterspell after I got cursed,” he mused.

“Exactly. Couldn’t even have boiled the kettle right after that one. The magic is like...it’s part of me. If I’m not functioning right, neither does the magic.”

“Makes sense.”

She lapsed into silence again. The Doctor was about to ask another question when Rose spoke again.

“You know I wouldn’t ever actually curse you, right?”

It took him a second to follow her non-sequitur back to his teasing comment about curses back in the cell. 

“Of course,” he said.

“I used to think that I wouldn’t ever curse anyone but I don’t think that’s true anymore.” She sounded like she almost talking to herself, like she was a little out of it now.

“Oh?”

“I threatened to curse the wizard who cursed you and I would have done it. If I thought it could save you or Jack or others, I think I would do it.”

The Doctor dipped his head and pressed a kiss into her hair. “I hope you don’t have to.”

“Me too. I hate counterspells and I’d have to uncurse people after I cursed them,” she mused.

He laughed. “That’s my Rose.”

“How much farther? The movement is making it hurt worse,” she said.

“Almost there. I can see her at the end of the street. We’ll have you back to new in no time.”

“I still want tea. And a bath.”

“And blankets and clean clothes. I haven’t forgotten,” he said. “Do you have your key?”

Rose reached for the chain around her neck, confirming it was still there. “Yeah.”

He walked up to the TARDIS doors and was about to ask Rose to unlock the doors when they swung open on their own.

“That’s new,” he muttered. “Dead useful right now, though.”

Rose agreed and he quickly carried her through to the medbay.

Jack joined them halfway through Rose’s stint in the scanner. He cracked jokes to keep her mind off her injury as it slowly knitted together, which the Doctor was grateful for. The tension was slowly draining out of him with every glance at Rose’s smile, with every small reminder that she was back home and mostly safe.

Once he declared her as healed as she could be without rest, he and Jack accompanied her to the galley to check the first thing off her list of requests.

“I’m going to be completely spoiled by bedtime,” Rose said through a yawn.

Jack shot a grin over his shoulder, taking his eyes off the breakfast feast he was cooking up for a second. “You say that like it’s a bad thing, sweetheart.”

The Doctor slid a mug of tea onto the table in front of her and sat down in the adjacent chair. “She’s just glad that one of us is cooking instead of her.”

Rose grinned. “We all know that neither of you will let me near uncooked breakfast food in this kitchen.”

He and Jack nodded in agreement. 

By the time all the items on Rose’s list had been checked off, Jack had headed off to find his own bed. The Doctor stopped by Rose’s room to make sure she was still doing alright one last time.

Her door was open and she was curled up in her armchair, a fluffy blanket pulled up to her chin.

“You still awake?” he asked quietly.

“Mmm, barely,” she answered.

“Think it’s time to relocate to the bed.”

“Requires moving,” she protested.

“Would’ve done if I hadn’t happened by,” he said. For the second time that day, he scooped her up into his arms.

“My hero,” she teased. “Saving me from jail cells and head wounds and falling asleep in uncomfortable positions.”

The Doctor just smiled down at her, a soft thing that only she managed to coax into being.

He set her down in her bed and started to pull back. Rose stopped him with a hand on the back of his neck.

She looked up at him, eyes dark in the dim light. “Thank you, Doctor.” She pressed a lingering kiss just off the corner of his mouth and then let go of him.

“Goodnight Rose,” he rasped out.

“Night.”

The Doctor was pretty sure that she was asleep before he closed her door. He let his feet lead him towards the library to continue his research on magic. Rose was more right than she knew when she said the magic was an intrinsic part of her. Even when dead tired and unable to cast the tiniest of spells, she could still send sparks tumbling through him with a single touch. 


End file.
